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Unfortunately I couldnt find the article of a german math professor (in I think it was the DMV Mitteilungen<\/a>) who was decribing a patent trial in which he was an expert. Although in his view the patent in the trial basically described the Gauss-Newton Algorithm<\/a> it was still issued. <\/p>\n This is one of the reasons, why software patents are absurd. Most parts of a software are simply speaking pure mathematics. So issuing software patents means more or less to try “to patent mathematics” – i.e. patenting a discipline which had been living for centuries on the free exchange of ideas. No mathematician would claim that the use of a published result would be a “theft of intellectual property”, if he\/she is cited correctly. Mathematics is precious but free.<\/strong><\/p>\n Another reason, why patenting software is absurd is that this actually rather obstructs technological progress – e.g. see the example of the patent discussions about the mpeg standard<\/a>. Software patents are bad for open source projects and likewise for small to midsize companies, who do not have the money to fight for patent rights. And a lot of sofar issued patents are just ridiculous<\/a>.<\/p>\n For these or similar reasons the german business community patentfrei.de<\/a> is now also supported by the Open Source Automation Development Lab (OSADL)<\/a> and the patentverein<\/a> in their protest against the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA)<\/a> which is seen as a problem concerning software patents and which will be under investigation on monday<\/strong> by the EU council for competetiveness<\/a>. Unfortunately the german minister for justice seems to be in favour for the EPLA.<\/p>\n